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Oscars are rare for sci-fi, but at least the genre has its own awards

Submitted by Capt. Xerox on January 24, 2012 - 10:57pm.


Today was the day that they announced the Academy Awards nominations for motion pictures and, as usual, science fiction films didn't get much attention apart from the obligatory effects and sound awards. It's probably just as well since last year's crop of sci-fi films wasn't particularly great.

Not that genre fans care that much about their favourites always being snubbed for the Oscars. We do have our own awards, after all, especially for books.

For example, there are the Hugo Awards for which nominations are now being accepted. I don't know which books will ultimately end up on the ballot, but other award short lists are often good indicators.

One such list is from the British Science Fiction Association Awards. Their list of nominees was recently released. I have a strong suspicion that China Miéville's Embassytown will make it to this year's Hugos list.

The other big book award, of course, is the Nebula. During that ceremony, the Science Fiction Writers of America also honour one of their own as a grandmaster, which is a sort of honorary title that recognizes an author's distinguished career. This year's grandmaster is none other than Connie Willis who is no stranger to awards, having pretty much set the record for most wins.

Recently, I encountered yet another award designed to celebrate excellence in genre fiction. These prizes are known as The Kitschies and are sponsored by a rum company. I'm not sure where they fit on the spectrum of honours, but it's always nice for authors to be recognized.

Is there any lesser-known award that guides you in your selection of reading material, movie or TV watching?

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Lazarus's picture

Sorry Serkis

Submitted by Lazarus on January 27, 2012 - 4:56pm.

Capt. Xerox wrote:

Today was the day that they announced the Academy Awards nominations for motion pictures and, as usual, science fiction films didn't get much attention apart from the obligatory effects and sound awards.

Fox tried really hard to get Andy Serkis nominated for Planet of the Apes in the 'actor' category trying to establish a precedent for motion capture technology. I honestly think that Fox spent more time hyping this than they did advertising the movie itself. This resulted in a lot of debate in the POTA discussion forums, both pro and con for the idea. I've got mixed feelings myself. At one point in time I leaned towards those saying the facial expressions are as much the result of those tweaking the software and frames in post production as it comes from the actors 'captured' expressions. But then I watched a few of those extra features videos that you often find on DVDs/BRs and some of them showed that there really is a lot of facial features that are extremely detailed in the data they capture and they form a great part of the facial features in the final product. So I started to be swayed by some of those arguements. But even now while some of the side-by-side (human vs final product) comparisons show a great correlation, in other cases it is clearly still heavily influenced by non-actor inputs.

In any case, I don't think this is the last we've heard on the subject.

Sorry Andy/Caesar

~ Lazarus ~

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